While government representatives in The Hague quibble over ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Germans are making some real progress in adopting clean energy. In the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, home to 2.8 million people and numerous heavy industries, about 19 percent of the electricity is generated by wind, and in some areas of the state the percentage jumps to 75. Germany’s wind energy industry has been galvanized by laws that give price supports to alternative energy sources, and some German farmers have discovered that they can supplement their incomes by erecting wind turbines in their fields. Greenpeace Energy, a cooperative started in Germany by the environmental group Greenpeace to sell power from renewable sources, attracted 10,000 customers in its first year, twice as many as expected.
